I'm against it. I'll explain why momentarily. I do want to give you some background on me. I have been volunteering on political campaigns since I was 16 years old. I worked for Kerry in 2004 (when I was 16), Obama (I was one of his first volunteers in my state, and I convinced my parents to vote for him, in addition to speaking to hundreds of others) in 2008 and 2012, and first Sanders, then Clinton in 2016. In the intervening years, while attending college where I majored in Political Science, I worked as an intern in the offices of a local Senator and a Local House Representative, even renting a house (at my own expense) and staying after the school year was over in 2010 to finish the legislative session. I'm a leftist Democrat, nearly a socialist, but my political beliefs line up most with the Democratic platform, since Socialism isn't likely to win any time soon.

I do not think Donald Trump should be impeached. Yes, I think he colluded with the Russians in the 2016 election. Yes, I think he is guilty of obstruction of justice, and more importantly, guilty of high treason, which in the United States, is still punishable by death. And yes, I do believe he deserves the death penalty. He is the first President, including Bush, where I would stand aside, rather than take a bullet for him. But I do not believe it would be a good move to impeach him. He has proven himself to be so incompetent in governance that he can't get even the basics of his (evil) plans for the United States passed, even with control of both houses of congress.

Mike Pence is just as evil (or perhaps more evil) than Trump, and much more competent. He might be able to unite the Republican Party. Trump will NEVER be able to do that. And, in the 2018 midterms, Republicans face an unenviable choice. Stand with Trump and be flayed alive by the 60% who disapprove of Trump, or stand against Trump, and have Trump supporters blindly beat you to death with their flat earth globes because the President told them to. Trump is disastrous to his party, to the national brand of Republicans, and when he is beaten in crushing fashion by whoever in 2020 (I'm thinking Elizabeth Warren, DRAFT WARREN!) it will be a body blow to the Republican party. Maybe even the death blow I have been longing for since 2002.

Mike Pence is just as evil (or perhaps more evil) than Trump, and much more competent. He might be able to unite the Republican Party. Trump will NEVER be able to do that. And, in the 2018 midterms, Republicans face an unenviable choice. Stand with Trump and be flayed alive by the 60% who disapprove of Trump, or stand against Trump, and have Trump supporters blindly beat you to death with their flat earth globes because the President told them to. Trump is disastrous to his party, to the national brand of Republicans, and when he is beaten in crushing fashion by whoever in 2020 (I'm thinking Elizabeth Warren, DRAFT WARREN!) it will be a body blow to the Republican party. Maybe even the death blow I have been longing for since 2002.

On this we can agree. Trump, for all his pandering, is still fairly incompetent in applying that pandering to law. There have been actions taken, yes, but at the moment, his power has been for the most part limited due to his lack of understanding of the political scheme by managing to alienate members of both parties, as well as the various criminal investigations. Trump is bad, but I think we can agree that Pence is far, far worse. Even the democrats are quieting talk of Trump's impeachment while quietly (hopefully) preparing a solid campaign for 2020.

For now. We'll have to see what the 'Mango Mussolini' (thanks for that nickname Ini, and I'm keeping it ) pulls out of his insane bag of tricks.

I think the guy needs to be impeached and then tried in civilian courts for his serious crimes. The thought of atually seeing Trump hanged one day (yes, a bit fancifully) is a sort of sweet idea, but I'll leave the deliberations about that to the Americans. :) For me as a European the important thing is to get him out of office under legal forms, and to see as much as possible of his legistaltion getting blocked, delayed, overruled in court or filibustered.

Also, I move that if he is convicted of having played foul against US democracy and is sent to a long jail term then his fortune should be confiscated.

For the sake of discussion, I'm going to grant your premise, that Trump not only colluded with the Russians to win the presidency but broke numerous laws, up to and including treason, since becoming president.

But your argument is that we shouldn't make use of either the political process (impeachment) or judicial process (indictment) to handle the problem now because, and to paraphrase you, the guy that would replace him would be as bad or worse?

That is a line of argument I've never heard, for example, when discussing whether or not to prosecute a mob boss (which is language along the lines of what Comey has used to describe Trump's behavior and attitude). It's also fundamentally an argument that views justice as subordinate to achieving your own political ends, since you want Trump lassoed to the neck of the Republican party like an albatross to bring them down with, rather than for the Constitutional and judicial remedies for dealing with a treasonous president.

I'm also not reading in your initial post that you believe Pence to be guilty of the same crimes as Trump. You may well believe that, but if so you didn't say that. So, again, I'm seeing in you a desire to put partisan political ends ahead of any notion of justice or the rule of law under the Constitution. That's...not something I can support.

What a lot of people forget is that impeachment does not remove the President from office. Impeachment is merely the bringing of charges by Congress against a federal official, analogous to an indictment in a criminal court. The Senate hearings afterward correspond to the jury trial. There have been two Presidential impeachments in American history, and neither of the impeached Presidents left office.

President Andrew Johnson was impeached for violating the Tenure of Office act. He was successfully impeached by the House of Representatives, but acquitted by the Senate.

President Bill Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice. Again, successfully impeached by the House, acquitted by the Senate.

The impeachment process was never completed for President Richard Nixon - he resigned before the House voted to impeach (although it was widely believed that the vote would have carried, and that the Senate would convict.)

That said, impeachment does leave a stain on that particular President, and would probably prevent a bid for re-election.

But your argument is that we shouldn't make use of either the political process (impeachment) or judicial process (indictment) to handle the problem now because, and to paraphrase you, the guy that would replace him would be as bad or worse?

I don't expect anyone here to follow Brazilian politics, but a very similar situation in which an incompetent president was impeached to give way to one that is actively and indeed quite skillfully tearing the country apart is playing out there. If the political machine decides that Trump needs to go by way of Impeachment and criminal indictment, there won't be any tears or protests from me but Pence taking over as President should give any here of a liberal leaning some very serious pause.

I do not wish for the death of the Republican party. I would like to see them lurch back toward the middle. The Tea Party pulled this country far too right, but America is not meant to be a one party country. We need dissent, we just need reasonable dissent.

I don't expect anyone here to follow Brazilian politics, but a very similar situation in which an incompetent president was impeached to give way to one that is actively and indeed quite skillfully tearing the country apart is playing out there. If the political machine decides that Trump needs to go by way of Impeachment and criminal indictment, there won't be any tears or protests from me but Pence taking over as President should give any here of a liberal leaning some very serious pause.

Haven't they even had *two* presidents getting impeached and taken out of office lately: Dilma Rousseff and Lula da Silva?

I do not wish for the death of the Republican party. I would like to see them lurch back toward the middle. The Tea Party pulled this country far too right, but America is not meant to be a one party country. We need dissent, we just need reasonable dissent.

The Tea Party and some of Trump's base really should break out and form their own party, but I guess that won't be happening until at least 2020, since they have half hijacked the weight of the Republican party, who are now "in control".

I don't expect anyone here to follow Brazilian politics, but a very similar situation in which an incompetent president was impeached to give way to one that is actively and indeed quite skillfully tearing the country apart is playing out there. If the political machine decides that Trump needs to go by way of Impeachment and criminal indictment, there won't be any tears or protests from me but Pence taking over as President should give any here of a liberal leaning some very serious pause.

+1.

Much as he sucks, better the devil we know than the one we don't. We just have to ride out the rest of this term and fight hard to get a president who isn't a Russian plant, or a complete raging sociopath.

Much as he sucks, better the devil we know than the one we don't. We just have to ride out the rest of this term and fight hard to get a president who isn't a Russian plant, or a complete raging sociopath.

This same logic suggests that Congress and the Special Prosecutor of the 70s shouldn't have pushed for Nixon's indictment/impeachment/removal from office. Yeah he may have been using political operatives to bug the psychiatric offices of his opponents and stole files from the DNC....but at least we KNOW what a scumbag he is. I mean that guy Ford...he might be just as bad if not worse!

No? Brazil's president serves a four-year term of office and can be re-elected to a single consecutive term. Da Silva served 8 years, from January of 2003 to January of 2011.

Wikipedia seems to indicate that his indictment and trial all happened post-presidency.

Ah okay, thanks! Lula and Dilma Rousseff have both been in my news loop a bit, but I didn't know Lula had served as far back as that. For some reason I thought he had come into office after Rousseff was impeached in 2014.

This same logic suggests that Congress and the Special Prosecutor of the 70s shouldn't have pushed for Nixon's indictment/impeachment/removal from office. Yeah he may have been using political operatives to bug the psychiatric offices of his opponents and stole files from the DNC....but at least we KNOW what a scumbag he is. I mean that guy Ford...he might be just as bad if not worse!

I don't disagree with you. I want Trump to pay for what he's done. That said, he's clearly not capable of building a coalition of the willing, and if the election were held tomorrow, I think he's lose against any Democrat who was less hated than Hillary Clinton. (God how I wish she had not won the nomination. ANYONE ELSE and Trump would never have won the presidency.) However, unless we remove Trump, Pence, Ryan, the Senate Pro-Tem and the entire Trump Cabinet in one fell swoop, we still have a Republican President, and probably one more competent than Trump. (Since almost anyone would be more competent than Trump.)

I want Trump to pay for his crimes, but I want his removal to result in an IMPROVEMENT in this country... and that would not happen.

Proceedings begin - sometime in the fall. Right around the time that the next wave of Congress-beings are getting voted on. This would make a Trump endorsement about as valuable as a diploma from Trump University.

These things take time, and of course Trump isn't going to turn tail and resign like Nixon did. He's going to argue everything, which will drag it out - making it difficult for any of his pet projects to get rolling.

By the time it's over, we have the new crop of Congress-beings (the type that don't get Trump endorsements) in office, further hampering those projects and maybe even pushing back a bit. Time for the actual 'conviction proceedings' in the other house.

This also takes some time, so we're well into 2019, and starting to get the new Presidential candidates up and running. Whether the conviction (and removal) occurs or whether Trump is (ha!) acquitted, there's now a lack of time to get things moving on those projects, and we're essentially in 'lame duck' territory.

The idea of Pence being in charge of the country is concerning, yeah - but then plenty of people I know have pointed out that he could very easily be working behind the scenes right now, VP isn't exactly the on the same level as say, a random citizen. Having him as president could have long lasting negative effects, yes, but -

So could having Trump go through his entire presidency, with all this shit he's done - and just get away with it. The idea that someone doing all of that could just have a full term with no negative consequences during it sets some very disturbing precedents. I've heard someone say its not even about getting rid of him at this point, it's just proving that there is actually some sort of line that the president of america should not be allowed to cross & get away with it just because he's the president.

The data on this is a little scant - after all, impeachment has only happened twice in the history of the country. Even Nixon (who resigned before he could be impeached) was pre-emptively pardoned by Gerald Ford for 'all crimes discovered and undiscovered' - and he did commit serious war crimes, like the bombing of Cambodia while lying to the public and to Congress about what was going on.

Taking a former President to trial post-term might be a case of first impression.